William H. Lawler has been named corporate vice president and general manager of the Military Aircraft Systems Division, effective Feb. 1, 1997. Lawler succeeds Wallace C. Solberg, who retires at the end of February.
Jay L. Witzling has been appointed division director, Delta II and Titan programs. Witzling will oversee all facets of management of the company's former Space Transportation Division. His responsibilities will include all government and commercial Delta II launch vehicle programs and the Titan IV payload fairing program.
The company announced the following appointments and promotions: Systems Engineering Division Richard Gentile, vice president Secure Systems Center. Jim Guilfoyle, vice president Business Development. Marco deVito, vice president Enterprise Integration Activity. Carla Bowers, director new business for the Enterprise Integration Activity. William A. Woodard, vice president Technology Management Group. Joe Stafford, vice president Technology.
Drexel L. Smith has been promoted to vice president, Program Development. Smith will remain responsible for the company's marketing/communications program, strategic planning, and the coordination of new business development throughout Wyle. L. Craig Smith has been promoted to senior vice president. His primary responsibilities include financial management, treasury operations, and financial data processing systems.
NASA is seeking as many as five industry design and definition studies for an Earth-imaging radar satellite that would use advanced synthetic aperture radar (SAR) techniques to cut costs and improve image quality. The U.S. space agency said yesterday it expects to award contracts worth about $700,000 each in March, with reports due in November. The proposed "LightSAR" platform would be used for scientific research, commercial remote sensing and emergency management, NASA said.
Kenneth H. Guss has been appointed president of Raytheon Aircraft Montek Company. Guss will be responsible for day to day operations of Montek, as well as strategic planning and overall results. He will report to the Executive Office of Raytheon Aircraft, the parent company. Richard S. Danforth was named to the position of vice president - Operations, with responsibility for factory operations in Wichita, Salina and Andover, Kan.
FAA said yesterday that it will order four more changes to the rudder systems of Boeing 737 aircraft in addition to nine proposed airworthiness directives already pending, including three dealing with the rudder. These are also in addition to rudder recommendations issued by the National Transportation Safety Board that the FAA plans to deal with soon.
Hungary has set up a coordination committee to prepare for entry into NATO, China's Xinhua news agency reported yesterday from Budapest. Samogyi Fernec, state secretary of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, will head the committee, which includes officials from the ministries of Foreign Affairs, National Defense, Internal Affairs, Finance, Transport, and the intelligence sector. The committee will handle all issues concerning Hungary's membership in NATO, including public statements on progress.
U.S. Army Missile Command is surveying industry for sources to integrate Global Positioning System and Automatic Target Recognition technology in smart weapons and precision guided munitions.
James B. Greer has been appointed president, effective immediately. Greer will be responsible for all day-to-day operations of the company, as well as the development and implementation of the company's strategic plans.
The Defense Dept. will release a version of its Global Digital Terrain Elevation database for use in civil aviation as part an effort to address the problem of controlled flight into terrain (CFIT), Vice President Gore announced yesterday. In a speech to the International Conference on Aviation Safety and Security in Washington, Gore hailed the DOD decision as "a major breakthrough" in the effort to avoid CFIT accidents.
The Pentagon has expanded the Quadrennial Defense Review to include in its modernization panel a group that will focus on intelligence issues. "Recently we just added a panel on intelligence issues" that will include the National Foreign Intelligence Budget, William Lynn, the Pentagon's director for program analysis and evaluation, said yesterday.
Edward M. Bullard has been named director of Sundstrand Aerospace Washington, D.C. Operations. Bullard succeeds Albert Barbero, who retired at the end of the year.
NASA'S JOHNSON Space Center will issue documents Jan. 22 soliciting high- speed wind tunnel tests for a 5.2% model of its proposed X-38 human-rated orbital vehicle. According to the Jan. 13 Commerce Business Daily, JSC wants tests at incremental speeds ranging from Mach 0.4 to Mach 4.9. NASA is studying the X-38 as a possible crew rescue and transfer vehicle for the International Space Station and other "orbital destinations" (DAILY, Oct. 25, 1996).
Douglas C. Roach, the House National Security research and development staffer who originated the committee's 1997 defense authorization report language against developing a short takeoff and landing version of the Joint Strike Fighter, is leaving the committee, it was confirmed yesterday. He will be replaced by Stephen P. Ansley, now a professional staffer on the procurement subcommittee. Ansley served 24 years in the Army and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel at the time of his retirement in 1995.
Industry and government representatives have agreed on a schedule for implementation of standards and specifications of the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) next-generation precision landing aid. "We have agreed to a timetable for building the standards and system specifications that will be used for producing revenue generating equipment for all-weather airline operations," said Phil Boughton, VP-engineering, Air Transport Association (ATA).
Daimler-Benz AG will sell its wholly-owned subsidiaries AEG Electrocom GmbH of Constance, Germany, and AEG Electrocom International Inc. of Irving, Texas, to Siemens Automation Div., Nuremberg, Germany. It said the moves will be effective retroactively from Jan. 1. With the sale, Daimler-Benz said, it has largely completed an effort to focus on traffic, transportation and service. The company has reduced its business units from 35 in mid-1995 to 23.
Development of a lower cost "family" of space launch vehicles under the Pentagon's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program will likely lead to the development of much larger commercial communications satellites than presently in operation, and possibly larger military platforms as well, the FAA official in charge of regulating commercial space launches predicts.
Yves Michot, chairman of France's Aerospatiale, said the company will post a net profit for 1996 that will be in line with half-year results of 273 million francs. He said Monday at a press conference in New York that net debt fell by 3 billion francs to 3.5 billion francs as of Dec. 31, and that orders climbed by 61% to 63.3 billion francs from 1995's level of 39.3 billion francs.
REP. FLOYD SPENCE (R-S.C.), chairman of the House National Security Committee, has "some problems" with nominees for a panel that will evaluate recommendations of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, an HNSC spokeswoman said. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), chairman of the HNSC research and development subcommittee, has objected to nomination to the National Defense Review Panel of David S.C. Chu, former head of the Pentagon's Program Analysis and Evaluation office. A Weldon spokesman the congressman hadn't notified Defense Secretary William J.
The U.S. Air Force's Wright Laboratory is launching a research effort to reduce the false alarm rate for infrared threat warning systems, an increasing problem when operating over cities. "The urban environment has become more demanding," the AF said in a Jan. 14 Commerce Business Daily notice. Man-made sources of heat in industrial areas can trigger false alarms, and false alarms over populated areas risk collateral damage.
A test flight of a new national missile defense sensor was aborted Monday at Kwajalein Missile Range in the Pacific Ocean because of instrumentation problems, according to the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. Launch of a missile from Kwajalein carrying a Boeing-built exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) sensor was to have been coordinated with launch of a Minuteman II missile from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The test is intended to prove capabilities of the sensor. A sensor developed by Hughes is slated to fly in a similar test later in the year.
The potential side effects of further consolidation in the U.S. tactical missile industry have caught the Pentagon's attention and will be studied closely, defense acquisition chief Paul Kaminski said yesterday. While the Pentagon has been operating with eight major missile suppliers, due to "mergers, both announced and potential mergers, we could see three of those absorbed" and the industrial base cut to five, Kaminski told reporters yesterday in Washington. "In principal I wouldn't be concerned about that," he said.
